Bread and Jam

Lorraine, currently the most Irish of my Irish workmates, just provided me with bread and jam. This may sound odd but food as simple and yet as nourishing as bread and jam are infinitely rare in Korea. Garlic bread - covered in sugar. A white loaf - half sugar. Chocolate - not enough sugar. A fry up - not enough beans. Don't get me wrong - I am going to miss Korean food simply because even though it is highly unpresentable, it is both delicious and spicy as hell, a combination which I never really relished before. Spice tolerance levels - at a record high. But after a year, it is the simple things which you long for. Here is my list, in no order of importance:

1) Sausages that aren't frankfurters
2) Butter that in all likelihood comes from a cow
3) Milk that doesn't stay 'fresh' for a month
4) Chocolate
5) Potatoes that aren't of the sweet variety
6) Hummus
7) bread - from wheaten to soda, the craving just gets worse
8) Crisps

There are others, of course. It is a weird social anomaly that whenever a group of Irish people get together in Korea, they will begin to talk - and for a lengthy period of time - about what foods they miss the most. People come back to Korea with the strangest things in their hand luggage - squished Denny's sausages, salt and vinegar Tayto crisps - these are things that you will never lose the taste for. Just thought I'd warn you.

I am writing this and am suddenly aware that I feel quite giddy. I have a bad cold and 'injected' tonsils, as my doctor told me. I assume he meant 'infected'. Anyway, a visit to a Korean doctor means that you usually get a vitamin shot. In the ass. I was quite disappointed not to get one today. I even lingered around the counter when they gave me my prescription, looking anxiously at them in case they had forgotten. And Korean medication leaves you with, as Shaun says, a 'floaty' feeling. Teaching suddenly doesn't seem important anymore.

Speaking of Shaun, he has just said an amusing anecdote about how he has been teaching a kid for two months, under the impression that the long-haired child in question was a girl. It turns out that he is a she-male. He has already used the pronoun 'she' on his report card. Phew, wouldn't like to have to handle that one when the gender issue psychiatrist is called in.

The Omara Portuondo concert was amazing. She is yet another grandmother who is still kicking it, and doing it well. I also met a guy, Chris, who was six foot eight tall and had hands the size of small American states. He could pick up a pitcher of beer like it was a pint glass. I spent a large part of the night staring rudely at him.